State of the Clairification Nation: –Not-a-Werewolf, now with new working title The Cossack’s Kin: ~20,000 words to completion –Dickensian Fantasy: in pieces on the floor (almost literally, but the sticky-notes were getting a lot of cat hair stuck to them, so I picked them up and put them in a stack instead) –Stories sold in 2009: 2 –Stories on submission: 1 –Stories undergoing revision: 1 –Stories nowhere near complete: 4 –Stories put on hold pending alchemical transformation into brilliant Nascent Novel: 2 …which means I have nothing at all ready to send out to people. *!* faster, faster, faster! […]
Progress Report
As the year draws to a close, I am, as always, disappointed with how far I’ve fallen short of the goals I set for myself. I wanted to write a short story for every month in 2009. Even counting the 2008 stories I revised, I only came up with half that; nor am I quite finished the Not-a-Werewolf book. I did, however, write some things of which I am very proud. Sold:“The Tongue of Bees”“Who in Mortal Chains” On submission:“The Oracle of the Dashboard”“The Compass of Chicago”“The Duellist, After Her Prime” Final revisions:“A Sovereign Cure for Pneumonia” In progress:“Rush Lane”“Seven Postcards from the Garden of Earthly Delights”“Book of the Dead” Broken:“King of Bramble Heights”“Bleaker Collegiate” Next things to write:#3 in the Gus series#3 in the Oracle series State of the Little Novel:2/3 complete, aiming for February State of the Big Novel:In pieces all over the floor… almost literally. This novel needs a chirurgeon. State of the Novelist:…in need of another cup of coffee. Red-letter day yesterday. I got a cheque in the mail. I am in a fortunate position–I have a day job which covers my living expenses, so I am free to spend this cheque on something symbolic. Because […]
In which I am a superhero named Galvan
…fighting the forces of parental oversight with my friends Mercuria, Skew, Quiksilver, Spectaculo, and Princess Kicking-Ass. Much wine was consumed, once the parental oversight was vanquished. Yes, we’re in our thirties and even forties, and we still can’t get drunk in front of the fam. In important writing news, however… Accepted for publication:“The Tongue of Bees” On submission:“Who in Mortal Chains” To submit:“The Duellist, After Her Prime” First drafts complete but in need of more work:“Bleaker Collegiate Presents an All Female Production of Waiting for Godot““A Sovereign Cure for Pneumonia”“The Oracle of the Dashboard” First drafts in progress:“The King of Bramble Heights”“Forty-Nine Days in the Intermediate States, with Extracts from the Great Liberation by Hearing”“Seven Postcards from the Garden of Earthly Delights”“Rush Lane” Novel progress:Not-a-Werewolf: still on Chapter 5Dickensian Fantasy: Chapter 11 of Draft 4 (6 more chapters to go) Vexed questions of the day:Which thing to finish next? And will someone order my pizza for me? […]
In which the night is sweet
It is, you know. Sweet and spicy and warmer than the day was. My cat won’t come inside. I will be meeting with my writing group in a couple of weeks. So that I don’t show up pantsless, I need to take an inventory: Short stories accepted for publication:“The Tongue of Bees” On submission:“The Duellist, After Her Prime” First drafts complete:“Who in Mortal Chains” Back to the drawing board:“Bleaker Collegiate Presents an All Female Production of Waiting for Godot“ First drafts in progress:“A Sovereign Cure for Pneumonia”“The King of Bramble Heights”“Forty-Nine Days in the Intermediate States, with Extracts from the Great Liberation by Hearing”The talking fish story“Seven Postcards from the Garden of Earthly Delights”“Rush Lane” Novel progress:Not-a-Werewolf: halfway through Chapter 5 of what I believe is partial draft 10Dickensian Fantasy: Chapter 10 of Draft 4 (7 more chapters to go) If only I felt more like writing. At the moment, after a rather grueling week of looking at the books of others, I only feel like masticating potato chips in front of some Criminal Minds. In other excellent news, though, I will shortly begin reading slush for Ideomancer. […]
Still on our backs closer than a shirt
Violence: complete. 4800 words. I don’t know the real title yet. This story felt the way I imagine it feels when shrapnel, long buried in your flesh, works its way to the surface. […]
Monthly Progress Report
I suppose it is not exactly monthly, but it has been a month since the last one, give or take. In that month I have done a fair bit of work, notwithstanding a Hardware Fail and a great deal of other claims upon my time. novelsNot-a-Werewolf: 19,000 to date.Dickensian Fantasy, Draft 4: 26,000 to date. Yeah, I started on it. I don’t get real credit for all of those words, though, because a lot of them are cannibalized from Draft 3. stories in progressGodot: 2100, and only about 250 of them suck, which is a great improvement.Book of the Dead: 1200, all genius. Though this is a very difficult and dicey story for a number of reasons.Violence: 990, some of which were just transcribed from the handwritten draft, others of which were added yesterday.Talking Fish: no progress. stories completed since VPPie: ready to submit, need to pick a market.Belladonna: on submission. The discerning reader will note that despite all of this verbiage, I did not actually complete any stories in either December or January, although I did manage to touch up the Pie Story to the point of being ready for submission. I owe myself two past-due stories now, plus […]
this moment of clarity, this moment of honesty
I’m so glad Christmas is almost over. It sucks the brain from my skull like the yolk from those fancy Ukrainian painted eggs. I cannot keep track of which words belong to which dates; I will now begin tracking my progress via total word counts. Also, this method prevents me from taking credit for all the crappy words which I later remove. It will, I am sure, lead to negative word counts during some periods (sigh). Not-a-Werewolf: 14,000.Godot: No progress; continues to suck.Last Duellists: Met with beta readers for awesome dinner and feedback, but haven’t yet actually fixed story.Dickensian Fantasy: um, somewhere north of 250,000 all told. Figured out how to fix part one; scared to start. Received for Christmas: silver acorn, print of family home, great quantity of drink, chipotle mustard, thing to make vichyssoise in.Still want for Christmas: luggage, huge biceps, correct spelling of “vichyssoise”. […]
All we like sheep have gone astray
(Having once sung the Messiah with my university choir, I tend to get the entire damned thing stuck in my head at this time of year, except for the parts without a soprano part, which didn’t get rehearsed at the same times.) Major technical problems at Casa Clairification the last few weeks: I couldn’t get online much at all. What began as a major annoyance turned out to be a source of exactly the right kind of boredom. Instead of puttering about reading the words of others, I buckled down and wrote some of my own. Anyone actually prolific will scoff at these counts, no doubt. All I can say in my defense is that it’s also busy season at the Day Career and I keep being the one to turn the lights out at the office. Not-a-Werewolf Book: 9990 words since Nov 17 Godot Story: 2789 words (actually, quite a few more words than that, but the rest of them sucked, and were duly excised) “The Tongue of Bees”, formerly “BEitD”, formerly “LtLCBftCaW”, is now in the mail. !!!! You’d think this would involve about thirty seconds: print story, stick story in envelope, lick envelope, affix stamp. In fact–and […]
And now back to our regularly scheduled program.
This month, so far, has been productive but scattered. I spent most of the day Saturday doing a thing I can’t quite call writing because, you know, words didn’t actually appear on the page. I never did figure out, at least on that day, what I was doing wrong in that story. I know that despite getting almost nothing done, at the end of it all my brain felt like used tissue, and I went to a party and said nothing of consequence and everyone else was more interesting. As of today: The Godot story: 548 words to date, mostly Saturday, mostly lousy. The violence story: Who knows? You don’t think I’m going to bother to count handwritten words, do you? I’ll just bank them for whatever day I decide to transcribe them into a proper file. The Not-a-Werewolf book: 2584 words in the new draft (draft 9?!), some pirated from draft 8, some shiny and new. Actually, when I look at it laid out this way, I don’t think I can call this a productive month after all. Sigh. […]
In which I use my free hour to write–what else?
I managed to finish the Pie Story yesterday with a suggestion of something that actually makes no sense and isn’t possible in the context of the story. In my defense I was already late for a party and bsleek was running about bare-chested with a cucumber in his pants telling me to hurry up. (It was a costume party, just so you don’t think my household is regularly full of half-naked cucumber-wearers.) Today, I finished it again, in a more satisfying fashion, and sent it off to some beta readers who volunteered during the party and will probably regret it now that they’re sober. My story tally from VP onward: September: “Learning the Tongue of Bees” (formerly “A Brief Education in the Decadents”, formerly “Leaving the Laundry Circles, Bound for the Corn and Wine”), 4000 words October: “The Last Duellists of the Flanders Park School”, 4000 words November’s story will likely be the Talking Fish Story, since it still has that appetizing feeling in my brain, meaning there is something there I will enjoy doing. After that I’ll have to go a little further afield to figure out what story to write next. […]